Alexandersmap

    Category: Lifestyle

    • Progression

      “I am suffocated and lost when I have not the bright feeling of progression.” — Margaret Fuller

      I have a garden and fancy myself above average in gardening. But I’m the first to tell you I haven’t reached mastery in the fine art of horticulture. My vegetable garden is barely holding on. A friend who focuses exclusively on his vegetable garden knows more about tomato varieties than I ever will. I know exactly who to ask for advice when my own tomatoes aren’t thriving or are getting nibbled on by some critter in the night. But in general, my gardening skills progress every season.

      A life of progression is a happy life. The alternative is stagnation or regression, and what fun are either of those? No, we must be advancing in a clear, positive direction to live a fulfilling, joyful life. At risk of an eye roll or two from the friend group, progression requires production. We must produce the results we aspire to achieve.

      We usually progress in one area of life while regressing in another. We can’t focus on everything. Every yes is a no to something else. I choose to be completely ignorant of pickleball and cribbage, that I may aspire to greatness in, say, gardening and writing. That I haven’t reached greatness in either is beside the point. I am happy with progression. The key to a happy life is finding that something to progress towards.

    • To Rise Above

      “Great minds have purpose, others have wishes. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortunes; but great minds rise above them.” — Washington Irving

      It happened again just yesterday. A friend called to use me as a sounding board for a self-described obsession over a shocking trial happening in Massachusetts right now. I listened politely for a while as she failed to pick up on my signals that I was the wrong audience for shock gossip. Eventually I was saved by a call coming in to exit stage left.

      For the record, I’m the wrong audience for any shock gossip. Don’t tell me what the neighbors have done now, tell me what you are doing to rise above it all. Forgive me if I pull away from the misfortunes of the world. One may be aware and empathetic without swimming in a pool of misery and indignation. Call me boring, call me ill-informed, call me no fun at all if it helps, but don’t call me to gossip about the world.

      I won’t apologize for my focus on the productive use of my days. We may debate whether the output is worth the trade-off in precious time, but the point is to be useful doing something meaningful, not gossiping about the folly of mankind. Here is real empathy: We’re all just stumbling around in the dark, trying to find our way in this lifetime. Mistakes and misfortune happen to all of us. It’s what we do about it that will matter in the end. The conversation I want to have is on just how we’re each achieving liftoff in our own quest to soar.

    • Unencumbered

      “Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

      They say the best professional athletes have the shortest memories. Striking out in your last at bat doesn’t mean you’ll strike out in this one. It simply means you’ve seen this pitcher before and hopefully learned a thing or two in the encounter. And that philosophy carries the day in all things in life. Don’t let yesterday’s nonsense encumber us on as we rise to meet each bright, clear morning. Do what must be done with the clarity of hope and purpose.

      I’ve been carrying this post for twelve hours awaiting this next paragraph. There was a time when I would write a couple of crappy paragraphs just to round it out to something worthy of the post. But I’ve learned that throwing up a post with the primary aim of word count leads to some not very good blog posts. To encumber the reader with fluff words does a disservice to each of us. So let us leave on good terms. Until tomorrow then?

    • The Doing and the Done

      “There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is having lots to do and not doing it.” ― Andrew Jackson

      I’d like to get around to enjoying doing nothing when I have a lot to do, but honestly, it’s just not my style. I’m happiest when I find things to do when I ought to be doing nothing much at all. Call it an inclination to make order out of chaos. Sometimes I have to find chaos to make order of.

      Does this mean I won’t embrace retirement one day? Are we who fancy productivity doomed to work ourselves to death? Or simply focus on something else instead? A hint of how we’ll act tomorrow is how we act in our non-work time today. I believe we don’t have to lock ourselves in our career track to be doing useful things, we simply have to be inclined to be useful.

      While there is satisfaction in getting things done, isn’t the real joy in life to be found in the doing? To be active in the game is to be playing the game. Fun isn’t just where we find it, but what we make of it.

    • Who Knows Where the Time Goes?

      Across the evening sky,
      all the birds are leaving,
      But how can they know,
      it’s time for them to go?
      Before the winter fire,
      I will still be dreaming,
      I have no thought of time.
      For who knows,
      where the time goes?
      Who knows,
      where the time goes?
      — Sandy Denny, Who Knows Where the Time Goes?

      The other day I heard the honking of geese as I sat under the umbrella reading in the shade. I only heard and never saw the geese, but a sudden pop on the umbrella made me stop reading and look up. It turns out the umbrella saved me and the book from an unpleasant deposit a goose was making on its flyover.

      Yes, the geese are back. A sure sign of the summer season shifting towards later in the game. And have you noticed? Sunrise is later too. The summer harvest is abundant and relentless. Acorns are already bouncing off the pavement. Back to school sales are in full swing, and Halloween candy will be sold out if we dare wait until October to buy it.

      Ready or not, time moves on. Memories relentlessly pop up in social media feeds. WordPress prompts us to look back on our own posts from this date in previous years. Reminders are everywhere to look up from what is occupying our attention and have a look at where we are, where we’ve been, and what’s changed.

      And still, we have no thought of time until something jolts us into awareness. Beating a familiar drum, we ought to savor those summer tomatoes and corn, soak up the sun and time with one another. For who knows where the time goes? Tempus fugit. It flies right along like geese on a mid-August day.

    • Life and Poetry

      All the things to which I give myself
      grow rich and spend me.
      — Rainer Maria Rilke, The Poet

      We are what we focus on, for we are spending our lives in the process. Wherever we go, whatever we do, we are doling out our grains of sand. The time will never return again. Awareness of the value of time is our curse and our saving grace. The only answer for tempus fugit is carpe diem.

      I read poetry to encounter verse like that above. I write to try to arrive at something approaching the feeling I get when I read it. Perhaps you read it the same way, or wonder what the fuss is about. We all bring our own lens to life and poetry. For me, Rilke demonstrates that we are timeless and fragile all at once.

      I’m delighted by the perfect crust on a sourdough. The aroma of fresh herbal bread made on a hot day when I had no business using the oven but eagerly pay the toll for the way the house smells as the bread bakes. Candles are nice, baking bread is nirvana. Should we not pursue with vigor all that makes us feel alive?

      Sourdough is a two-day event. One makes the dough today to bake tomorrow. That in itself is an act of faith that we’ll be around tomorrow to enjoy the bread, but life’s greatest rewards aren’t immediately gratified. One must earn tomorrow today.

      That which delights us offers a higher return on the minutes spent. It’s not nihilistic to seek a higher return on our time, it’s our duty to our one precious life to maximize our value. To derive meaning from minutes spent vigorously. The spend will happen on its own. ’tis the vigor we bring that makes all the difference, now and in that uncertain future awaiting us.

    • Pebbles

      “It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe” — Muhammad Ali

      Inevitably, after doing some workout and feeling the rush of adrenaline that washes over you when you finish, I tell myself I ought to do that more consistently. I mean, a year ago I was working out twice a day for 75 days, so why am I not working out at least once a day now? Maybe working out twice a day was a bit much, but not working out at all was a bit too far in the other direction.

      Habits come and go. I wrote this blog every day for seven years and just stopped one day just to reset myself and stop that creeping feeling that writing was an obligation and not a privilege. I’m writing again with new perspective, and without feeling like I must publish today no matter what. Hopefully the content feels less like an obligation to read too.

      Habits stick when we love doing something. When it becomes so ingrained as part of our identity that we can’t imagine not doing it today and for every tomorrow we have left ahead of us. When it nags at us like a pebble in the shoe, we’re far less likely to follow through with it today. And our actions today are all that matters in all things.

      Today I took my bike out for a 15-mile ride. That’s nothing for a hard-core cyclist, but it’s not a bad use of an hour for a casual cyclist trying to get back in the habit again. It turned out what was nagging at me was how much I missed being out on the bike while stuck in a routine chock full of excuses. Tomorrow will take care of itself, but I’ll celebrate today for all the right reasons.

    • Drawing New Circles

      “Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another is drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning; that there is always another dawn risen on mid-noon, and under every deep a lower deep opens.”

      “The one thing which we seek with insatiable desire is to forget ourselves, to be surprised out of our propriety, to lose our sempiternal memory and to do something without knowing why; in short to draw a new circle. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. The way of life is wonderful; it is by abandonment. The great moments of history are the facilities of performance through the strength of ideas, as the works of genius and religion.”
      — Ralph Waldo Emerson, Circles

      Reading Emerson is like having a conversation with an old mentor we haven’t seen in awhile. We’ve grown, formed new ideas and opinions, and began to believe the hype generating between our ears that we’ve got it all figured out. Then our mentor comes along and reminds us that we’ve only read part of the story. There are larger circles being drawn as we speak, and the longer we linger in this one, the more behind the curve we will be in this new reality unfolding before us.

      Life is indeed change. Life is indeed unfair. What of it? Unfair compared to what? Be the change you want to see in the world, and stop focusing on all that we cannot control. The profiteers, bigots and fools be damned. We must forever change in the face of constant change. I grow so weary of people trapped in the unfairness of the world, instead of stepping out into something far beyond the trap of that particular vicious circle of thought. Be bold with your one precious life!

      Pendulums swing all the time—what is the axis point from which it pivots? There lies the truth. “Everything looks permanent until its secret is known”, Emerson wrote in the essay quoted above. Find the secret if you dare. Not bullshit conspiracy theories, but the truth within, that limits growth beyond this circle.

      To be resilient, we must abandon who we were and become what we are meant to be. We must forever draw new circles, or be imprisoned by the circle we current reside in. Every end is a beginning. Circle that if it helps. And go seize what flees.

    • The Harmony of Life

      In my eyes, the garden is beaten down and tired right now. Between a trifecta of the heat and occasional torrential downpours and a family of rabbits that find living amongst delicious plants delightful (to the chagrin of my fence-leaping pup), it’s going through a lot right now. And just as we compare ourselves to our own peak days of fitness and learning and view anything lower than that standard poorly, I compare the garden to where it was a month ago or in its peak in past seasons. It’s a bit unfair of me, I think.

      This week we hosted our neighbors, who delighted in the garden. They saw the beauty that I’d been ignoring while scrutinizing what’s faded. And in seeing it, they reminded me to stop looking at what’s missing and look instead for what is here. We are as happy in life as what we focus on.

      The French have an expression that I’m trying my best to adopt in my own life: l’entente de la vie, which translates directly as the understanding of life, but deeper, means the harmony of life. In other words, living a balanced life with time and attention to actively savoring all the joys available to us. So it pairs well with joie de vivre.

      A big part of savoring is simply being present with what is bringing us joy in the moment. Sure, there will always be something nagging at us that isn’t perfect in our world, but whispering quietly to us in that chorus of misery is something beautiful awaiting our attention. Turn the senses towards that and watch life transform into something more delightful, more delicious, and more harmonious with the act of living. Magnifique!

    • Something Gritty and Tangible

      Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,
      Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness;
      So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another,
      Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.
      — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Theologian’s Tale; Elizabeth

      We modern time travelers are forever busy, distracted and hustling on to the next. We ought to remember that many encounters we have will be our one and only exchange with a fellow time-traveler. Or it may be the last of many. The lesson? Savor the time together, however fleeting it may be. For we will never pass this way again.

      Since his untimely passing last week, I’ve been on a Glen Hansard binge. This often happens when an artist passes—we are reminded of their work, and seek to know more about what they’ve left behind that we may have missed. And with Glen Hansard, there is a whole catalog of brilliant, stunning music and film to choose from. Dare I say, he was the Van Morrison of Gen X.

      One might say the deck is stacked against us reaching even a small percentage of our potential, let alone our potential time with others. We must prioritize, and hope that we encounter the right ships in the night along our way, and at just the right time. This requires our receptiveness, active awareness and diligence, before the opportunity slips away forever.

      We can’t possibly experience everything, or know everyone. Inevitably something slips right through our grasp. Like sand, we can’t grab hold of it too tightly or too much squeezes through. But we can grab our share and hold on just tightly enough to feel we’ve got something gritty and tangible on our hands even as the rest flows past us in a whir. Sometimes, maybe that’s enough.